The passenger journey through St. John’s international Airport is occasionally interrupted or slowed because there are no taxis available.

Lisa Bragg, director of business development and marketing at YYT, says those situations do happen but are infrequent occurrences.

The airport contracts out taxi service to City Wide with a rate grid which differs from the regular schedule.

She says they’re always concerned about the entire transportation experience in the air and on the ground. But, staffing shortages in the taxi industry sometimes result in the unavailability of a cab.

The taxi service is meant to be in place for arriving passengers but the isolated incidents are generally early-morning hours when people are less inclined to wish to work,” says Bragg. “I’m not making excuses for us or the taxis but that’s a hard reality and we are trying to stay on top of it and do our best.”

Alan Murray, a cab driver for the past two years, backs up those words. He says there are lots of taxis, but not lots of drivers.

He says most drivers work daytime until 7pm, then the night shift takes over until 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. so there can be issues until the next ones come on around 8:00 a.m.